beeing aggressive is the key. You should be raising almost all the time preflop and betting out on the turn no matter what two cards you have. Remember that people only hit a piece of the flop about 30 percent of the time. Yes, its risky when your opponent hits a hand, but its better then being passive and getting blinded out.
This also means that if you are first to act after the flop, you could take down the pot more often than not if you just put out a bet. Being this aggressive also has the advantage of frustrating your opponent and getting him off of his game.